PC Home Theatre Question

[Sir Roger Moore]

I am reaching the end of life for my machine and with few upgrades it has lasted me nearly 5 years and done a really great job. With Windows 7 coming out and my desire to move to Bluray I am looking at what to do next and I just do not understand some of the current concepts, so I would like your thoughts.

What I use my PC for is as a home theatre solution so I can buy once and be done with things. I have a 7.1 Creative sound system and play both TV and movies on my PC speakers. The video from my cable box is connected directly to my HD inputs on my monitor and I use PowerDVD to watch movies on the PC.

I was planning to use the new Auzen X-Fi HomeTheatreHD as my new sound card. Do you connect the HDMI video out from your video card to the HDMI input on the sound card and then connect the HDMI output from the sound card to the HD monitor? I am confused how HDMI works as it carries both audio and video signals.

If you guys were setting up a new rig how would you do it?

Thanks for your thoughts/suggestions.

http://www.auzentech.com/site/produc...theater_hd.php

[GauravA42]

the card has a toslink (optical audio) output, wich is the best optioon, since it delivers the highest quality 7.1 sound, and this is supported by home theatre systems

[matt2000]

Having HDMI on both cards does seem a bit odd, I've never heard of audio through HDMI anyway.

On another note, 62 posts in 2 days? That must be some sort of record.

[Susurrate]

For your situation you would run the HDMI straight from your video card to your monitor and then connect your PC sound system to your audio card. Running the HDMI from the video card to the audio card and then out would most typically be used in a standard home theater setup where you have and additional audio receiver outputting to your speakers.

Matt: HDMI is basically DVI with audio capability, you don't typically see it used that way in PCs because they tend to have separate audio and video cards.

[der_jackal]

Originally Posted by Sir Roger Moore

I was planning to use the new Auzen X-Fi HomeTheatreHD as my new sound card. Do you connect the HDMI video out from your video card to the HDMI input on the sound card and then connect the HDMI output from the sound card to the HD monitor? I am confused how HDMI works as it carries both audio and video signals.


Thanks for your thoughts/suggestions.

http://www.auzentech.com/site/produc...theater_hd.php

Generally there is a pass through or a connector cable between the two devices (video card and audio card) that will allow you to simply use one as the dispersal point for HDMI packaging.

In this particular case the audio card has an HDMI input for you to loop your Video Card (or a BD drive or anything else with an HDMI out) into the Audio card, have the audio part of the HDMI stream packaged up with the video signal, then sent back out on the HDMI out line.

Originally Posted by GauravA42

the card has a toslink (optical audio) output, wich is the best optioon, since it delivers the highest quality 7.1 sound, and this is supported by home theatre systems

TOSLINK can't push the new Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA streams with out downsampling.